Episode 4: Dr Mark Rolfe/The one about Politics

Episode hosts: Ben Nickl and Geoffrey Lee About our guest on this episode: Mark is an Honorary Lecturer with the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where he taught. He is keenly interested in Australian politics, rhetoric, propaganda, political satire, American politics, populism, and political leadership.  Some of his recent publications include: ‘The idea of national humour and Americanization in Australia and Britain’, in the European Journal of Humour Research (2022); ‘The Danish Cartoons, Charlie Hebdo and the culture wars: satiric limits in comparative national and transnational perspectives’, in the European Journal of Humour Research (2021); ‘Is this a Dagg which I see before me? John Clarke and the politics in his political humour’, in The Journal of Comedy Studies (2019). About the episode hosts: Ben is a Senior Lecturer in The University of Sydney’s Department of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. He works on popular technologies of mediation like humour and laughter and is the research coordinator for the Australasian Humour Studies Network. His latest book is called Moral Dimensions of Humour (Tampere University Press, open access, 2024). Geoffrey Lee is a first-year PhD student at the University of Sydney. His thesis will explore how humour is transferred from the livestreaming platform Twitch onto other connected social media platforms. Acknowledgement of Country: We would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which the University of Sydney has been built, and which were taken from them without their consent, treaty or compensation. Most episodes of this podcast were recorded on this land. This land has always been a learning space for many Aboriginal nations, and as teachers and students, and people of all kinds of origins, we can draw strength and guidance from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, one of the oldest knowledge systems in the world. Want to come on as a guest or co-host, or get in touch about something else? Simply email [email protected] (AHSN research coordinator and ‘Cutting Edge’ host), visit the AHSN website https://ahsnhumourstudies.org/  and follow/subscribe to us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AHSNHumour/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@ahsnconference or Twitter/X @AHSN_Humour. Special thanks and all credit for editing and sound engineering goes to Jacob Craig/USYD FASS media room studios.